Another time a knot of peasants were gathered together in friendly converse in the grassy middle-lane, when two Zaptiehs rushed forward with whips, and flogged them away, _women_ as well as men! But the worst instance of brutality that came within my observation took place while I was discussing a bottle of Slavonian wine, and exchanging English songs for Bosnian, with a merry group of rayahs, belonging mostly to the Greek Church, ‘Serbs,’ as they proudly called themselves, who had come to take part in the fair and festa of their Roman Catholic rivals. Of a sudden our festivities were broken in upon by the sounds of a scuffle behind, accompanied by such shrieks as made me start up, and the firelight fell on a gendarme—the same, I think, who had interrupted the minstrelsy—who, with a stick or some kind of weapon, was beating an old Christian man as if he were a pig, and kicking the poor cringing wretch the while till he howled for mercy. I was stepping forward to interpose, but two Bosniacs clutched hold of me and held me back, whispering with more covered hatred than can be described, ‘’Tis only the Turks!’ The Zaptieh, however, not wishing to provoke Frankish intervention, desisted from his belabouring, and left his victim to limp away as best he might. The group of ‘Serbs’ had not shown any sign of attempting a rescue, but I saw more than one brow knit ominously for the moment. But the visible emotion was transient, and their faces relapsed into that impassive stolidity which is the normal expression of the Bosnian rayah. It has been already observed that a Zaptieh had been told off with the express commission of observing our motions, and it was a continual annoyance to find a gendarme ever dogging at our heels. But it was obviously disagreeable to the Turks that I should be about at all; and as the night advanced our detective began to find the duties of espionage somewhat wearisome, and appears to have put our own Zaptieh, with whom I noticed him confabulating, up to bidding me retire to rest, as if he were rather commander than escort. This he did to my no small astonishment, while I was listening to one of the ballads, and was sent roundly about his business for his pains, to the unconcealed delight of the Christians, who from that moment dubbed us Consuls—a name given by the Bosniacs to any Europeans who are not subject to the caprices of Turkish gendarmes; for they argue that no one less than a foreign representative would dare to lift a finger against these creatures of their tyrants.